Quote of the day—Defens

ubu would enter a museum of Nazi artifacts and comment on the delicacy with which the lampshades had been stitched.

Defens
December 24, 2014
Comment to Their humor is very telling
[I have long been pleased to have ubu52 comment on my blog and have invited her to attend Boomershoot to meet friends and others in the gun culture. I always viewed her as mildly anti-gun but with good intentions. My model for her was that she understood the facts and the logic of the gun rights movement but had trouble getting over some emotional hurdles into real acceptance. I appreciated her “keeping us honest” when we would get a little carried away with conclusions not fully supported by the evidence. It was “fear” of her calling me on something that would cause me to do a little more research before stating something I wasn’t totally sure of.

My model of her totally changed last night after I read a comment from her about a fiction, extremely graphic, story about someone engaging in degrading, casual sex with Ann Coulter. Her comment was:

The writing is brilliant, creative and professional. No editing required. No surprise, it was written by someone in LA because there are so many professional “creatives” here.

You may not like it because it doesn’t match your core beliefs, but the writing is brilliant.

This blew apart my previous model for her. I’m not sure what to think now but whatever model Defens is using is consistent with the known data.—Joe]

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52 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Defens

  1. Joe, if you followed erotic writing (some mistakenly broad-brush it ALL as porn), you would know that there is a classification of it that uses famous people indulging in erotic acts instead of the usual made-up and/or pro-forma characters. Most students of the genre believe this classification is mostly about the writers expressing THEIR fantasies rather than it being about the writers creating these fictions to destroy their intended characters in real life.

    One cannot study abnormal psych without considering the role of porn as both a trigger mechanism AND a stabilizing influence in the lives of sexual deviants. As a cop, I took graduate courses from some of the best forensic psychologists on this exact subject.

    • I haven’t read erotica or watched porn in years. I prefer to live my sexual fantasies rather than experience some proxy for them.

      I’ll consider your input on the subject. But I still have a strong inclination to believe these people would get pleasure out of seeing Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, and others they explicitly suggested for similar treatment actually subjected to such treatment in real life.

      • That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those who wanted to see Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered actually wanted to see that.

        • And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that.

          Spiegelman-Rotten

          Right?

          • I don’t get what this is supposed to be. You have a half man/rat that looks a little like Howard Cosell looking out of a hole at a blackbird wrapped in a chain or necklace with an “R” hanging off of it… (Does this have something to do with the Chicago Blackhawks?) And the name at the bottom is an anagram for something — Ned Ruddy? End Drudy? End Ruddy?

            Am I close?

          • Chicago Blackhawks versus the Minnesota Gophers and one of them is moving to Rochester?

          • I must be dense. I really don’t get it. What does the blackbird have to do with the rat? What does the “R” stand for? Who is the man?

          • That was a poster used in occupied Denmark in the 1940s. There is no blackbird. It is a rat with the face of a Jew.

          • Okay, I get it now.

            You know, you may think my ideas are whacked but I think you have some equally whacked ideas — including this one: ” I still have a strong inclination to believe these people would get pleasure out of seeing Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, and others they explicitly suggested for similar treatment actually subjected to such treatment in real life.”

          • Now that you “get it” could you please answer the question? ‘And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that.’

            And how about when some guy says this about Michelle Malkin? “I would very much enjoy raping that little pinay bitch with a broken beer bottle. If that should indeed happen, you know where to find me, gook-lover.” Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?

            Or when people from “the religion of peace” demand cartoonists be executed? Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?

            Or when someone tells me: “If you know whats good you will keep your fucking mouth shut about Obama or you will come up missing on the news.” Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?

            When some guy tells his ex that if he can’t have her no one will? Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?

            When people say they want to “kill more cops”, is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?

            When someone says something it is not the least bit ridiculous to take them seriously unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

            That you took so long to “get it”, that you apparently think it is ridiculous to believe people who repeatedly say they want certain people tortured and murdered are serious reinforces my conclusion about you and those who you align yourself politically with. The political left is responsible for the genocide of something on the order of 100 million people in the 20th century. That the political left is making these kinds of threats here and now about their political opponents is extremely serious to me. For you, or anyone, to think they are not serious, to think it is ridiculous to believe they are serious, shows you either you have no sense of history and context or you are a coconspirator attempting to put your intended victims at ease until you and your ilk can exterminate them. I see no other alternatives.

          • Regarding that poster. I read the original reference and it says it was posted in “occupied Denmark.”

            So, who created it? Was it the occupiers? Was it someone Danish? Did they do it under duress or with their own free will? Was it created to mock the Nazis or was it created by someone who agreed with them? Without knowing it’s actual background, it’s really just a piece of 1940’s art.

            If you read the original article the poster was in, you would have seen this paragraph — ‘That seemed really exciting for a couple of days until I realized that it could be received as one more example of the trope that Crumb had consistently mined with Angelfood McSpade and other willful racist caricatures: the return of the repressed—all that insulting imagery that had been flushed out of the mainstream culture but existed in the back of everybody’s lizard brain—now brought back in a kind of Lenny Bruce “Is there anybody I haven’t insulted yet?” spirit, with the hope that if you say the word “nigger” over and over again, you remove its sting… ‘

            Sometimes, creative people do things for effect. It has absolutely nothing to do with what they really think or feel. You are looking for some sort of deeper meaning to things that may not mean anything at all. (You’re also trying to compare them to people who are mentally ill, but that’s another topic altogether.)

            You have such a black/white way of looking at things, it seems that you are incapable of seeing any of the grays in life.

          • @ubu52, With each comment you dig your hole even deeper. I would not have thought that possible.

            I’ll put up a post later today.

    • I see that particular piece more like something that would have been written for a hardcore National Lampoon type publication. That piece was written for the shock and the laughs, not the porn value.

      Also, thanks for pointing out that that there is a difference between erotic writing and porn.

      • You really need to go yell at your history teachers, loudly, every damn one of them. It’s beyond me how you could manage to get through high school without being able to recognize that style of anti-Jew propaganda put out in large volumes by the Nazi’s and many socialist sympathizers. Not all of them were in Germany – it was a world-wide phenomenon in the 20s and 30s to greater and lesser degrees, and seriously ramping up during WW II.
        Comparing greedy, murderous, usurious, big-nose Jews to rats and other vermin was a very common theme. To live in a region that prides itself on “art” and “symbolism” and not recognize it is indicative of how shallow and agenda-driven your environment is, Ubu.

        • Hey! I went to high school in the South! I don’t even remember them mentioning Jews when I was growing up. We barely studied WWI and WWII (I seem to recall that we took History in 10th grade and that was the end of it.)

          (If you think that is crazy, I took my last math class in 10th grade too — and that includes college. I tested out of math in college.)

          • I don’t care WHERE you went to HS or college, you need to yell at them. You failed at History 101 – demonization and propaganda. The psychology of war and business. Portraying your enemies as “other,” whether it’s krauts, gooks, slopes, chinks, kikes, fat-cats, wops, cowboys, round-eyes, dagos, hillbillies, hicks, hacks, or bumpkins, is step number one in controlling and eliminating your enemies.
            People are very reluctant to kill those that they think of as like themselves, but killing off vermin is just common sense. So, “other-ing” those you wish to destroy with imagery such as that above has a long history. You are now in California, a haven for the “arts” which deal in imagery. If you honestly didn’t get that reference, then you have utterly failed to know history, and therefore have learned nothing from it, so you shouldn’t be voting because you are voting in a vacuum of ignorance.
            If you are lying, and you understand the reference, but are just playing dumb to cover your contemptible praise for the writing while ignoring the meaning, then you have some idea why conservatives dislike the left and Hollywood so much, because you are living evidence of the hypocrisy of the type: praising the clothing of destructive barbarians while ignoring the destruction they wreak.
            Coulter says some outrageous things to be deliberately provocative, to tweak the intolerant sensitivities of the eternally-outraged left. If you copy/paste what she said without context, they might sound bad – in context, with the proper set-up and punchline, it’s usually clear she’s using humor (dark and sometimes off-color or outrageous, true, but clearly non-serious) to get at some bigger point. A screed like the “well-written” one you praise is just sputtering hate and vitriol, not trying to get at any deeper meaning I can see.

          • That piece that you dislike so much — if you read the comments, someone pointed out a contemporaneously written piece that praised Ann Coulter and I believe that the blog post was written as a counter-balance to that. (That would be context that we lack at this point in time. Those pieces were all written in 2005.)

            From the style of writing, the post you hate so much was written by a journalist who probably became a scriptwriter (not unheard of around here). It was written in “feature” style.

  2. Ubu Reine is an amoral aesthete; see Oscar Wilde and the fin de siècle Aesthetic movement.

  3. I stand by what I wrote above – but upon further pondering, can’t help but wonder if we do something similar. We (I) critiqued that article as upsetting and degrading – extracting meaning from the arrangement of words and phrases: meaning that we did not care for.

    ubu comments that the writing was excellent – not considering the content, but expressing an appreciation for the skill with which article was crafted. This is what I observed in the QOTD.

    We do the something similar. When anti-gunners point at an M-4 carbine and shriek with horror about the killing machine, we scientifically observe that it’s a collection of moving parts that has no innate personality. It’s well built, efficiently designed, and functions well. Only when a person with evil intent picks it up does the carbine play any role in evil doing. There’s a disconnect between us and “them” because we simply don’t ascribe properties to inanimate objects that they do.

    Perhaps the same can be said of this article – the author never expressed any overt threat. The article itself is an inanimate object, constructed of pixels on a screen. I found the article to be disgusting, but it was well crafted. I didn’t like it because of its content and because the opinion expressed through it is scientifically unfounded. In a vacuum, the article simply exists 0 just a like an M-4. Does the mere presence of an M-4 cause a normal person to go crazy and start shooting people? We’d submit the answer is no. Would the presence of a wretched article about the rape of Ann Coulter impel a normal person to do something similar? Same answer. We can dislike the article because it’s untruthful, we can dislike it because it upsets our sense of moral value or belief system, or we can dislike it because it’s poorly constructed. I’d have to go with two out of three.

    ubu mentions Tam as a writer that she disagrees with but thinks is a fine writer. As a gun guy, I guess I’m supposed to like and be impressed by Tam – but I find her trademark snarkiness to be off-putting. Along the same lines as ubu, I can admit she’s a good writer while also observing that i don’t much care for her writing – it seems she’s often too busy looking for the punch line to appreciate the finer elements. Pretty much the same as the writing of Ann Coulter herself – strident, snarky, and self aggrandizing, but generally well constructed. Perhaps to be appreciated for its skill, but ultimately discarded because of content.

    • Good points. But I think you are glossing over their apparent desire to physically harm their targets. Tam and Coulter mock their targets but never express a desire for, or express pleasure at the thought of, their physical harm.

      • And the same people that would wish them harm, babble endlessly, about “micro aggressions”.

        • This is very perceptive. It may not be exactly the same people, but it definitely comes from the same side of the argument.

      • No.

        He did NOT.

        A gun has no standing in court.

        What you say or print DOES.

        That standard alone makes what one writes different from what one “builds”.

        Hitler was a monster.

        But that particular “feature” about him was not what created the 3rd Reich. He was also a great communicator. His writing was “brilliant”…

        My question to you and all of those who support “hate speech” and “hate crime” is…

        Would you say the same if the target was Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama?

        Don’t need to answer here… just check in your heart and maybe you will begin to understand why some find it HIGHLY offensive… and whatever it’s artistic value… pales into insignificance…

          • you assume dishonet.

            I assume lost.

            Maybe.

            It’s good to give one the benefit of the doubt. until proven otherwise. And I have learned NOT to accept 3rd party opinion of another without validation – which is simple to do in dialog

    • Nope. Different. One is a physical object who material existence just “is.” Words are abstractions of ideas, they are INTENDED to carry meaning, at least if they are anything above the babbling of a newborn, but even then the child is trying to learn to put meaning into the sounds they make. Sentences are intended to carry meaning.
      I can acknowledge good writing on subject I disagree with, but I would be very remiss no not simultaneously note the abhorrent content of the meaning while discussing it. I would never consider ONLY the style – words are vessels carrying concepts. To only consider the artwork on the vial, and not the smallpox virus within, is a very, VERY dark path for a mind to go down. But many of those on the left seem to be happy to do it every day of the week.

  4. It is a very, very old and very worn out tactic of the left. They’ll say something outrageous and hideous, and when you call them on it they’ll say you’re stupid for not understanding the nuance of it, and that it just goes to show the world that they’re superior and you’re a dolt. I’m not at all impressed. This process repeated itself every day in the media.

  5. ubu,

    I am seriously interested in your opinion – would you feel the same about the “artistic value” of this work IF it was directed to Hilary or Michelle?

    And what about their daughers – does it make a difference?

    And when it comes to “nuance”… a lack of answer is an answer…

    • Michelle and the kids would be off limits — but so would Laura Bush and her kids. Wouldn’t you agree?

      Hillary, I’m not so sure.

      The thing about Ann Coulter is that Ann writes to offend (9/11 widows, etc.) If I could think of a counterpart to Ann on the left, I would say “Go for it.”

      But, regardless of all this, the piece is well written.

  6. I wasn’t going to add this, but I can’t help myself. Her replies to the poster Joe added reveal one of two things: She is either grossly ignorant of history, or she is being quite disingenuous about her ignorance. I’m inclined to believe the latter, since she was miraculously able to relate the face as drawn to a well-known (but long deceased) Jewish sports-caster, but just can’t quite make the connection to putting that kind of a face on a rodent, and its implications. Either way, she is typical of the progressive Bill Whittle rails upon in the latter post here, as her manipulations of verbiage to fit her belief structure are rooted in a mental disorder that refuses reality and other points of view.

      • And I will now label you a pathological liar and mentally ill. Cosell has been dead for nearly 20 years, and was EXCLUSIVELY a sportscaster in his public life. And yet, here we are, you claiming this poster looks like a man who ONLY did sportscasting, and yet you were never interested in sports? And you claim to have no idea he was Jewish? Not a chance. You are a troll, and everything you post from now on, at least for me, (and I encourage all of Joe’s readers to take the same viewpoint), is an out-and-out lie, and has no basis in any reality we inhabit. I am beginning to see a speck of the mental illness Joe has spoken of with great knowledge.

        • P.S. I know Howard Cosell was a sportcaster and I know he had a big nose. That’s pretty much what I know about him — though I’m a child of the ’70s and he was on TV a lot.

        • I don’t think she is a pathological liar. And her mental issues are certainly not so severe that it can really be call a “mental illness”.

          Please see my comment here.

  7. There is a parallel we can review, by the way; examine the reactions to the various assassination fantasies revolving around Dubya generated by the left.

    “Oh, but it’s ART” doesn’t change things. It’s still shit.

    But then again, in progworld, it’s ALWAYS okay if you do it to your enemies. Ubu couldn’t even find it in herself to say ‘Wow, that’s pretty awful’ and repudiate it. Not based on politics but just on simple decency.

    • Here’s a few Ann Coulter quotes:

      “If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”

      “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s deaths so much.” -on 9/11 widows who have been critical of the Bush administration

      “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

      “We need to execute people like (John Walker Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals.”

      “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

      “The swing voters — I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don’t have set philosophical principles. You’re either a liberal or you’re a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster.”

      • The comments about Edwards, Stevens, and McVeigh are somewhat comparable and worthy of condemnation. The others are in poor taste.

        • So, take what you said, change “left” to “right,” and see if you still think it applies. (I never see the right condemning Ann Coulter.)

          • I can only find one comment where I mentioned the word “left”.

            And of course it doesn’t apply in that context. All the major genocides have come from the political left.

            And, in case you hadn’t already figured this out, I don’t align myself with the political right. But I did just criticize Coulter for the distasteful and repugnant quotes you provided.

          • Sure you do – I condemned her just up above in the post that you loved. She’s a strident, smug, inflammatory troll. I quit reading her long ago, just as I no longer listen to other conservative bombasts like Limbaugh – but I don’t wish them harm, either.

          • I give up. This is becoming an argument with no end and I’m really not in the mood to argue — plus I’m starting to get those really insulting posts (see the one above from chiefjaybob calling me personally “a pathological liar and mentally ill”).

            I haven’t called anyone any names and I don’t intend to sit here and put up with that sort of BS. Sorry.

    • @Toastrider:

      She can’t make a comparison. The reason she and her fellow travelers can’t, is due to having no reference points in their world. Everything is relative.

      When one has no hard moral basis for dealing with life, then there are no limits to what you think, or how you think.

      There is a very good reason that most Progressives dislike Christianity, and other religions that have a similar moral base.

      The problem with this is we are hardwired for a belief system. Theirs becomes Progressivism by default. When you believe nothing, you will buy into anything.

      • This is consistent with the claim that we should respect everyone’s opinion. But you can only do this if you have no respect for the truth.

        And, as Bill Whittle said, they disregard the truth.

      • There is probably more than one issue going on here. Part of it is hearing and/or reading something completely different than what was said. And it’s not limited to non-religious people. I spent decades trying to deal with someone who had a very strong Christian background yet she and her entire family could not hear (or read) my words correctly. I could literally ask (actual example), “How many suitcases did you bring?” and they would answer, “They are green.” One family member (another actual case) could be talking about the dog and another believes they are talking about a spouse. They chat back and forth for a minute or more with me in total amazement. I waited for them to figure it out on their own but they didn’t. When I pointed this out to them they didn’t really believe me until they conferred with the other family member.

        • Selective hearing and selective memory seem to go hand in hand in some people, in my experience. They not only mentally modify what they are hearing, but they also remember things incorrectly. I’m unsure if the one causes the other. But the salient thing is they always remember things in a fashion that is to their benefit/profit. At least they do when dealing with other people. I’m unsure if this holds true when they are only dealing with themselves. I suspect it is. It would help explain why they are unable to modify their actions, even when the results are consistently to their detriment. Essentially they are lying to themselves in that situation. As you software people say: GI=GO.

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  9. Yeah, pity the poor libs/socs/comms/progs/demos; as someone else pointed out decades ago, “If it weren’t for double standards, they’d have no standards at all,”.

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